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WOW.
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials warned companies Tuesday to think twice about circumventing a new ban on certain flavored-cigarettes by introducing similar products like little cigars.
Specifically the ban affects cigarettes with fruit, candy or clove flavors. Although such products -- primarily made by small, private firms or imported into the U.S., -- account for a tiny segment of cigarettes smoked in the U.S., the ban is the first major step taken by the FDA since the agency was given jurisdiction over the tobacco industry in June.
Health officials also said they hoped the ban would stop many young people from trying smoking.
"The appeal to youth is overwhelming," said Matthew L. Myers, the president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, one of the groups that pushed for enactment of the legislation giving FDA authority over tobacco products. "They are starter products."
FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg noted that 90% of adults who smoke started as children.
Products affected by the ban include cigarettes with flavors like clove, vanilla and grape. In 2006, tobacco-maker R.J. Reynolds agreed to stop marketing flavored Camel cigarettes as part of an agreement with state attorneys' generals.
The ban doesn't apply to menthol cigarettes but the FDA said it's "examining options" for regulating menthol cigarettes as well as other tobacco products like smokeless tobacco products that are also available in several flavors.
At least one company, Kretek International Inc., which imports Djarum-brand tobacco products from Indonesia, imports cigars similar to the size of a cigarette that contain flavors like clove and vanilla that remain on the market for now, amid confusion about whether the law applies to cigars.
John Geoghegan, Kretek's director of product development, said the company has imported clove-flavored cigars for several years but "because of the banning of market shipments of Djarum cigarettes, distributor and retailer focus on Kretek's cigars has taken on additional prominence."
He said the Treasury Department's Tobacco Tax and Trade Board classified the products as cigars under federal law in 2007.
Lawrence Deyton, the director of FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, explained that the federal definition of a cigarette includes "any roll of tobacco wrapped in paper," suggesting certain cigars could immediately fall under the tobacco law and the flavored-cigarette ban.
An FDA lawyer said the FDA would look at "little cigars" and similar products on a "case-by-case basis."
In a memo to industry the FDA said the tobacco law applies to all tobacco products that meet the definition of a "cigarette" even if they aren't labeled as cigarettes or "are labeled as cigars or some other product."
Write to Jennifer Corbett Dooren at jennifer.corbett-dooren@dowjones.com
